Clinical studies on pulmonary tuberculosis were done and the following results were obtained.
I. Changes of tuberculosis at Kumamoto-Minami Byoin National Sanatorium during 6 years from 1976 to 1981
(1) The number of newly admitted patients with tuberculosis was 579 (male 447, female 132).
(2) The average length of hospitalization was 16.2 months in 1976, but became shorter to 5.8 months in 1981 by initial intensive chemotherapy.
(3) One hundred and fifty-four (50.7%) out of 304 cases had positive sputum culture for tubercle bacilli before treatment.
(4) Clinical effects of initial intensive chemotherapy for pulmonary tuberculosis was as follows; sputum culture became negative in 96.4% (148 out of 154) and 86.1% (262 out of 304) showed improvement of X-ray findings at the end of chemotherapy.
(5) Undoubtedly complications including 34 cases of diabetes mellitus, 15 cases of hepatic diseases, 18 cases of silicosis and 10 cases of cancer had a general tendency to have unfavourable effect on the course of pulmonary tuberculosis.
II. Bronchial tuberculosis
During the last five years we experienced 9 cases of bronchial tuberculosis. Of these, 5 cases were right-sided, and 4 were left-sided. All 9 cases were female. These results suggest that bronchial tuberculosis is not rare even nowadays despite the decreasing pulmonary tuberculosis. In those cases with long-standing respiratory symptoms, even in the cases whose chest X-ray films show no or minimal abnormalities, bronchial tuberculosis might be taken into account, careful examination of sputum and bronchoscopic examination should be actively done to confirm the diagnosis and for the determination of accurate lesion.
III. Quantitative diagnosis of coin lesion on the basis of quantification theory
(1) A total of 61 cases with solitary coin lesion of known etiology was statistically analysed.
(2) Of these 61 cases, 26 casess were benign and 35 cases were malignant.
(3) Lobulation, notch and poor delination of the mass are more common in malignant lesions and satellite lesions, cavity formation and calcification are common in benign lesions.
(4) Two groups, either benign or malignant, were significantly divided by Hayashi's quantification analysis with correlative coefficient of 0.7171.
(5) On the basis of cumulative frequency by calculation of these factors by giving category score on each factor, malignant lesions could be determined by the probability of 94.3% with 7.7% error in which benign cases could be included.
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